-----Original Message----- From: Kamryn Matika [mailto:kamrynmatika@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 10:58 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
I recall no arbitration ruling which relates to Wikipedia Review.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Why did you endorse my block if this is the case? The block was enacted solely on the ruling in the MONGO case and was applied to my reverting to a version of a page that contained a reference to Wikipedia Review. If there was no arbitration ruling that relates to Wikipedia Review, how is the justification for my block valid? Why did you support it?
I didn't read the link right. In this case the link might be fine, although Wikipedia Review is down right now. I don't support broad generalization of the MONGO case. Glad we cleared that up. Maybe we can resolve this. Who is it that thinks someone can be blocked for a link to Wikipedia Review based on the MONGO case?
Fred
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Kamryn Matika [mailto:kamrynmatika@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 10:58 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
I recall no arbitration ruling which relates to Wikipedia Review.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Why did you endorse my block if this is the case? The block was enacted solely on the ruling in the MONGO case and was applied to my reverting to
a
version of a page that contained a reference to Wikipedia Review. If
there
was no arbitration ruling that relates to Wikipedia Review, how is the justification for my block valid? Why did you support it?
I didn't read the link right. In this case the link might be fine, although Wikipedia Review is down right now. I don't support broad generalization of the MONGO case. Glad we cleared that up. Maybe we can resolve this. Who is it that thinks someone can be blocked for a link to Wikipedia Review based on the MONGO case?
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Heh, okay... everyone makes mistakes.
See [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essjay_controversy&diff=prev&a...] this edit I made, and my talk page [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:KamrynMatika&oldid=1...] following it.
It seems that (in this case) ElinorD and Crum375 believe that it is OK to block an editor for adding a link to Wikipedia Review. In this case, the link pertained to the article as it linked to a thread on Wikipedia Review where Essjay's deception was first brought to light, and (in my opinion) it's quite relevant. I was warned for adding the link, based on the MONGO ruling, and then blocked when I ignored the warning (my bad there I guess). Is this or is this not appropriate? Thanks.
On 7/2/07, Kamryn Matika kamrynmatika@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Kamryn Matika [mailto:kamrynmatika@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 10:58 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
I recall no arbitration ruling which relates to Wikipedia Review.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Why did you endorse my block if this is the case? The block was enacted solely on the ruling in the MONGO case and was applied to my reverting to
a
version of a page that contained a reference to Wikipedia Review. If
there
was no arbitration ruling that relates to Wikipedia Review, how is the justification for my block valid? Why did you support it?
I didn't read the link right. In this case the link might be fine, although Wikipedia Review is down right now. I don't support broad generalization of the MONGO case. Glad we cleared that up. Maybe we can resolve this. Who is it that thinks someone can be blocked for a link to Wikipedia Review based on the MONGO case?
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Heh, okay... everyone makes mistakes.
See [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essjay_controversy&diff=prev&a...] this edit I made, and my talk page [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:KamrynMatika&oldid=1...] following it.
It seems that (in this case) ElinorD and Crum375 believe that it is OK to block an editor for adding a link to Wikipedia Review. In this case, the link pertained to the article as it linked to a thread on Wikipedia Review where Essjay's deception was first brought to light, and (in my opinion) it's quite relevant. I was warned for adding the link, based on the MONGO ruling, and then blocked when I ignored the warning (my bad there I guess). Is this or is this not appropriate? Thanks.
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO/Propos...
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor. The only sites that shouldn't be linked to are those that make a *habit* of outing people, and the only people who are warned they might be blocked (or who are blocked) are the ones doing it deliberately and disruptively, as in "Oh, is THIS one of the naughty ones?" And "Ooooh, what about this? Aren't I awful?"
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor.
Indeed. The editors mentioned in that article deliberately revealed their identities to the NYT, and knew the information would be published.
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor. The only sites that shouldn't be linked to are those that make a *habit* of outing people, and the only people who are warned they might be blocked (or who are blocked) are the ones doing it deliberately and disruptively, as in "Oh, is THIS one of the naughty ones?" And "Ooooh, what about this? Aren't I awful?"
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Than you for clarifying.
On 02/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor.
The word "outing" does not appear in the ruling in question.
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor.
The word "outing" does not appear in the ruling in question.
Information you have approved for publication in the New York Times is not "private information".
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Information you have approved for publication in the New York Times is not "private information".
Define "private information".
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
Most of our older polices were writen with the aproach that even if they got into the wrong hands the damage they could do would be limited (see the old time CSD criteria or actual blocking policy)
On 7/2/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
Most of our older polices were writen with the aproach that even if they got into the wrong hands the damage they could do would be limited (see the old time CSD criteria or actual blocking policy)
The damage they can do is still limited, because if they're applied as battering rams, people step in.
On 02/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable. The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
This policy is not being applied with common sense. It's being applied stupidly and damagingly.
- d.
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
Well, all our policies ARE in the wrong hands. Wikipedia, after all, is also "the encyclopedia whose policies may be interpreted and acted upon by anyone."
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously. It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
On 7/2/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously. It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
What we're talking about is very simple. We have a bunch of people who volunteer their time because Wikipedia's a cause they believe in. That's not a bad thing to do. Therefore, don't make their time here an abject misery. Criticize them by all means. But recognize the line between fair comment and hurtful attacks that humiliate them. And don't do anything on Wikipedia that could put them in harm's way in real life.
For me, it's a no brainer that that includes not linking to websites that *make a habit* of humiliating their targets. It's very sad that a simple attempt to be decent triggered so much baiting and an unkind breaching experiment.
On 7/3/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
But that's going to be the normal use of this policy proposal. As far as I can tell, people aren't creating new links to the Three Bad Sites, so in that wise there are only the few hundred existing links to be concerned with. Nobody at the moment does seem concerned (except for MONGO's outburst against Wikitruth), so until the next time someone tries to invoke one of them in an RfC or ArbCom action, they do not enter into the picture. But sites like TNH's blog will be the ones that are targetted, because we cannot keep them from naming people when they see fit to do so; and the policy would be waiting for someone to invoke against them.
What we're talking about is very simple.
What we are talking about is not at all simple. It takes place in a context of considerable conflict of interest and in the realities of interpersonal and group dynamics that no amount of good faith can cover. You and MONGO and Jayjg spend a lot of time attacking WR, to the point where it seems to me that you don't care about the side effects of your campaign against them. I'm not really trying to protect linking to them that much, but I think they should in general be treated like other sites that we might link to. And yes: except for the huge volume of wikilegal reference to WR, there isn't a lot of strong reason to link to it. But people only really care about these links because of the campaign to rease them in the first place.
On 7/3/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/3/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
What we are talking about is not at all simple. It takes place in a context of considerable conflict of interest and in the realities of interpersonal and group dynamics that no amount of good faith can cover. You and MONGO and Jayjg spend a lot of time attacking WR, to the point where it seems to me that you don't care about the side effects of your campaign against them.
Hardly. I generally ignore WR, and have paid little attention to it for many months now. It happens to come up in discussions here, but keep in mind, the *purpose* of WR is to be a place where ex-Wikipedians can harass Wikipedians. On the other hand, the purpose of Wikipedia is not to make life difficult for WR denizens, nor is that the reason for wikien-l. WR members are obsessed with Wikipedia and their particular objects of hate in Wikipedia, so they imagine the reverse is true; rest assured, it is not.
On 7/3/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote> On 7/2/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
What we're talking about is very simple. We have a bunch of people who volunteer their time because Wikipedia's a cause they believe in. That's not a bad thing to do. Therefore, don't make their time here an abject misery. Criticize them by all means. But recognize the line between fair comment and hurtful attacks that humiliate them. And don't do anything on Wikipedia that could put them in harm's way in real life.
For me, it's a no brainer that that includes not linking to websites that *make a habit* of humiliating their targets. It's very sad that a simple attempt to be decent triggered so much baiting and an unkind breaching experiment.
So, www.howardstern.com is out? Or is that only when the target is a Wikipedian? What if Rosie O'Donnell (who is regularly attacked and humiliated by Stern) creates an account? Hmm, maybe that should be limited to not linking to sites that make a habit of humiliating members of the Wikipedia inner circles? Wait, no, there are no Wikipedia inner circles... Hmm....
On 03/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously. It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
Um, no. I keep mentioning it as an example of the idiocy your proposed attitude leads to. In the best of faith. As such, it is relevant and I'll keep mentioning it because it is relevant. That it counts against your position is not a reason to suppress all mention of it.
What we're talking about is very simple. We have a bunch of people who volunteer their time because Wikipedia's a cause they believe in. That's not a bad thing to do. Therefore, don't make their time here an abject misery. Criticize them by all means. But recognize the line between fair comment and hurtful attacks that humiliate them. And don't do anything on Wikipedia that could put them in harm's way in real life.
So remove the links that are in fact personal attacks.
Arbitrary blocking for linking at all - as has just been happening - is beyond the pale.
For me, it's a no brainer that that includes not linking to websites that *make a habit* of humiliating their targets. It's very sad that a simple attempt to be decent triggered so much baiting and an unkind breaching experiment.
For me, it's a no brainer that linking at all to a site deemed an "attack site" by (in actual practice so far) any administrator at any time will lead to a block ... is stupid and damaging to the encyclopedia and its community.
- d.
On 7/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously. It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
Um, no. I keep mentioning it as an example of the idiocy your proposed attitude leads to. In the best of faith. As such, it is relevant and I'll keep mentioning it because it is relevant. That it counts against your position is not a reason to suppress all mention of it.
The reason to stop mentioning it is that the person who did it regrets it and has apologized, so we should move on from that example. If it's really such a big problem, there will be other examples you can use instead.
On 04/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Um, no. I keep mentioning it as an example of the idiocy your proposed attitude leads to. In the best of faith. As such, it is relevant and I'll keep mentioning it because it is relevant. That it counts against your position is not a reason to suppress all mention of it.
The reason to stop mentioning it is that the person who did it regrets it and has apologized, so we should move on from that example. If it's really such a big problem, there will be other examples you can use instead.
That seems arbitrary and wikilawyerish. It's such a perfect example.
- d.
On 7/3/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
All our policies and practices are blunt instruments in the wrong hands. They need to be applied with common sense.
Well, all our policies ARE in the wrong hands. Wikipedia, after all, is also "the encyclopedia whose policies may be interpreted and acted upon by anyone."
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously.
No, it sticks out because it's not covered under the arbcom ruling.
It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
They could have done it for all sorts of other reasons based on [[WP:EL]], and people have. The issue was with the individual's reasoning.
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Information you have approved for publication in the New York Times is not "private information".
Define "private information".
See your local wikilawyer if you want to go down that path. I'll stick to common sense.
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
I think the issues with your slippery slope arguments have already been pointed out.
The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
Evidence?
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
I think the issues with your slippery slope arguments have already been pointed out.
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
Evidence?
Have you been reading the mailing list recently?
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
I think the issues with your slippery slope arguments have already been pointed out.
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's hurting the encyclopedia.
Evidence?
Have you been reading the mailing list recently?
Yes. Evidence?
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
I think the issues with your slippery slope arguments have already been pointed out.
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
See your local wikilawyer.
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org unlinkable.
I think the issues with your slippery slope arguments have already been pointed out.
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
I'll define it for you:
"Blanket ban": scare-term thrown around for effect in order to try to convince Wikipedians that Wikipedia is being "harmed". The term is often raised on wikien-l in relation to the MONGO case, invoking the "slippery slope" fallacy that the New York Times and even Wikipedia's own maillist archives will soon be banned. In reality, the MONGO case has only been applied to a tiny number of sites, none particularly valuable or interesting, and to a tiny number of editors, who were generally involved in breaching experiments.
See also: "The sky is falling".
James Farrar stated for the record:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
"Blanket ban": scare-term
NPOV, please.
No, thank you. This is a mailing list, designed and intended to support descriptions (often lurid) of points of view. There is enormous consensus that we will continue to use it for that purpose.
On 03/07/07, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
James Farrar stated for the record:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
"Blanket ban": scare-term
NPOV, please.
No, thank you. This is a mailing list, designed and intended to support descriptions (often lurid) of points of view. There is enormous consensus that we will continue to use it for that purpose.
Whoosh.
James Farrar stated for the record:
On 03/07/07, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
James Farrar stated for the record:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
"Blanket ban": scare-term
NPOV, please.
No, thank you. This is a mailing list, designed and intended to support descriptions (often lurid) of points of view. There is enormous consensus that we will continue to use it for that purpose.
Whoosh.
Even I miss one every now and then. Point to you, sir.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
Several of the people involved in the debate over WP:NPA -- specifically its "attack sites" section -- appear to be in favor of banning all links from Wikipedia to those "attack sites". They make no distinction between links from article space versus project or talk space, nor between links which are intended to serve as attacks and links which are merely involved in commentary, or for reference. They insist on the retention of wording which has this interpretation; they continue to cite Arbcom's "MONGO decision" as if they wish to enshrine and more broadly apply that principle. They resist the introduction of more moderate wording such as "links to abusive external material which are placed with intent to offend or abuse are disallowed."
If the "attack sites" portion of WP:NPA merely banned links which serve as attacks (an interpretation utterly consistent with the rest of NPA), if it did not try to resurrect BADSITES by punitively banning all links to an unnamed (and unnamable) list of shunned sites, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
Several of the people involved in the debate over WP:NPA -- specifically its "attack sites" section -- appear to be in favor of banning all links from Wikipedia to those "attack sites". They make no distinction between links from article space versus project or talk space, nor between links which are intended to serve as attacks and links which are merely involved in commentary, or for reference. They insist on the retention of wording which has this interpretation; they continue to cite Arbcom's "MONGO decision" as if they wish to enshrine and more broadly apply that principle. They resist the introduction of more moderate wording such as "links to abusive external material which are placed with intent to offend or abuse are disallowed."
If the "attack sites" portion of WP:NPA merely banned links which serve as attacks (an interpretation utterly consistent with the rest of NPA), if it did not try to resurrect BADSITES by punitively banning all links to an unnamed (and unnamable) list of shunned sites, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
Look, let's start talking some sense now. ED, WR are attack sites, nothing more. They have no value whatsoever, and, unless under some extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, there's simply no reason to link to them. The MONGO case was clear (and correct) about this.
On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times", and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events. Yes, it happened that one editor tried to treat a site as an "attack site" and most others didn't agree with him. However, his actions were quickly stopped, he apologized, and no real harm was done.
The hysteria-talk really must stop, it adds no value whatsoever.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
If the "attack sites" portion of WP:NPA merely banned links which serve as attacks (an interpretation utterly consistent with the rest of NPA), if it did not try to resurrect BADSITES by punitively banning all links to an unnamed (and unnamable) list of shunned sites, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
Look, let's start talking some sense now. ED, WR are attack sites, nothing more. They have no value whatsoever, and, unless under some extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, there's simply no reason to link to them.
No, Jay, you start talking sense. Just because you can't imagine a reason to link to them, does not mean that Wikipedia needs a formal policy stating that no one may ever link to them.
On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times",
I am not making that argument.
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban? Is it worth its cost?
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote: On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times",
I am not making that argument.
Well, it certainly was made.
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
Yeah, they pretty much are. Rare events, and generally involving wiki-drama, not actually building an encyclopedia.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?
Well, let's say one links to the front page of an attack site, which doesn't actually contain any attacks, but just links to all sorts of other pages that do.
Is it worth its cost?
What cost? I've seen none so far. The one example given of "abuse" I've seen done by all sorts of editors, many times, using various justifications.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
Yeah, they pretty much are. Rare events, and generally involving wiki-drama, not actually building an encyclopedia.
I'm not talking about wiki-drama, I'm talking about hypertext. Wikipedia is a website. Websites link to each other. It turns out it's an incredibly powerful and useful concept. If whenever we're talking about something said on site X -- whether this is in an RFC or Arbitration case, or a topicality debate in project space, or wherever -- and if site X happens to be on a secret list of Sites One Must Not Link To, such that instead we're supposed to use circumlocutions like describing the site in words, or emailing a URL, instead of just making a hyperlink like Time Berners-Lee intended -- if we insist on going through this cutting-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face exercise, just so we can feel good about not "endorsing" a site that has (perhaps egregiously) wronged one of our editors, that's just an incredibly frustrating and pointless waste of time.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?
Well, let's say one links to the front page of an attack site, which doesn't actually contain any attacks, but just links to all sorts of other pages that do.
So what?
I wish you'd answer the question. Why do we need a blanket ban? How does it prevent Personal Attacks (in ways that WP:NPA can't)? How does it help us build an encyclopedia?
Is it worth its cost?
What cost? I've seen none so far.
An illogical, censorious policy exacts a significant (albeit intangible) cost in that observers are left with the impression that our policies are driven by emotion, not logic. One begins to trust and respect our policymaking process less. Furthermore, one illogical policy can easily beget another, and another.
On 7/3/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
Yeah, they pretty much are. Rare events, and generally involving wiki-drama, not actually building an encyclopedia.
I'm not talking about wiki-drama, I'm talking about hypertext. Wikipedia is a website. Websites link to each other. It turns out it's an incredibly powerful and useful concept. If whenever we're talking about something said on site X -- whether this is in an RFC or Arbitration case, or a topicality debate in project space, or wherever -- and if site X happens to be on a secret list of Sites One Must Not Link To, such that instead we're supposed to use circumlocutions like describing the site in words, or emailing a URL, instead of just making a hyperlink like Time Berners-Lee intended -- if we insist on going through this cutting-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face exercise, just so we can feel good about not "endorsing" a site that has (perhaps egregiously) wronged one of our editors, that's just an incredibly frustrating and pointless waste of time.
It's only useful to link to sites that have useful content. Wikipedia has all sorts of rules about not linking to useless sites.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?
Well, let's say one links to the front page of an attack site, which doesn't actually contain any attacks, but just links to all sorts of other pages that do.
So what?
I wish you'd answer the question. Why do we need a blanket ban? How does it prevent Personal Attacks (in ways that WP:NPA can't)? How does it help us build an encyclopedia?
That has been explained at length. Wikipedians volunteer their time to help in this project; as a result of that volunteer work, they are exposed to often vicious harassment by a small number of banned editors on websites. We should not in any way bring attention to those websites. It's common sense, good policy, and basic decency. Stop doing it.
Is it worth its cost?
What cost? I've seen none so far.
An illogical, censorious policy exacts a significant (albeit intangible) cost in that observers are left with the impression that our policies are driven by emotion, not logic. One begins to trust and respect our policymaking process less.
I'm talking about real costs, not radical philosophy.
Furthermore, one illogical policy can easily beget another, and another.
Sorry, slippery slope fallacies rejected.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/3/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
Yeah, they pretty much are. Rare events, and generally involving wiki-drama, not actually building an encyclopedia.
I'm not talking about wiki-drama, I'm talking about hypertext. Wikipedia is a website. Websites link to each other. It turns out it's an incredibly powerful and useful concept. If whenever we're talking about something said on site X -- whether this is in an RFC or Arbitration case, or a topicality debate in project space, or wherever -- and if site X happens to be on a secret list of Sites One Must Not Link To, such that instead we're supposed to use circumlocutions like describing the site in words, or emailing a URL, instead of just making a hyperlink like Time Berners-Lee intended -- if we insist on going through this cutting-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face exercise, just so we can feel good about not "endorsing" a site that has (perhaps egregiously) wronged one of our editors, that's just an incredibly frustrating and pointless waste of time.
It's only useful to link to sites that have useful content. Wikipedia has all sorts of rules about not linking to useless sites.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?
Well, let's say one links to the front page of an attack site, which doesn't actually contain any attacks, but just links to all sorts of other pages that do.
So what?
I wish you'd answer the question. Why do we need a blanket ban? How does it prevent Personal Attacks (in ways that WP:NPA can't)? How does it help us build an encyclopedia?
That has been explained at length. Wikipedians volunteer their time to help in this project; as a result of that volunteer work, they are exposed to often vicious harassment by a small number of banned editors on websites. We should not in any way bring attention to those websites. It's common sense, good policy, and basic decency. Stop doing it.
Jay,
This does not explain the need for a blanket ban. It does explain the need for not linking to personal attacks, etc.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/3/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
I'm not talking about wiki-drama, I'm talking about hypertext. Wikipedia is a website. Websites link to each other. It turns out it's an incredibly powerful and useful concept.
It's only useful to link to sites that have useful content. Wikipedia has all sorts of rules about not linking to useless sites.
Wikipedia has rules about the insertion of useless *links*. And even if every link to a site is useless, we don't need an additional rule saying, never link to this site. The no-useless-links rule is both necessary and sufficient.
I wish you'd answer the question. Why do we need a blanket ban? How does it prevent Personal Attacks (in ways that WP:NPA can't)? How does it help us build an encyclopedia?
That has been explained at length.
(But this is still no explanation:)
Wikipedians volunteer their time to help in this project; as a result of that volunteer work, they are exposed to often vicious harassment by a small number of banned editors on websites. We should not in any way bring attention to those websites. It's common sense, good policy, and basic decency.
(I should really decline to take another turn on this merry-go-round, but:) Links to the vicious harassment, for the purpose of additional harassment, are vile and should be prohibited. But you still haven't shown why other kinds of links must be prohibited. You still haven't shown why a blanket ban is necessary.
The argument in favor of a blanket ban seems to rest on one or two assumptions:
1. that a link to site X is an "endorsement" of site X, and/or 2. that a viciously harassed volunteer Wikipedia editor, once harassed, is further wounded by every mention of the harasser, in any context.
What cost? I've seen none so far.
An illogical, censorious policy exacts a significant (albeit intangible) cost in that observers are left with the impression that our policies are driven by emotion, not logic. One begins to trust and respect our policymaking process less.
I'm talking about real costs, not radical philosophy.
You'll have to define "real cost", then. The cost in terms of rational people throwing up their hands and walking away from a madhouse is at least as great as the cost in terms of thin-skinned victims wailing that the bully's name got mentioned again. It's not "radical philosophy" to point out that irrational, emotion-laden policies weaken a project that's supposed to welcome rational, mature contributors.
On 7/3/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
If I'm being silly, it's only because such a blanket ban is silly.
Define "blanket ban".
Several of the people involved in the debate over WP:NPA -- specifically its "attack sites" section -- appear to be in favor of banning all links from Wikipedia to those "attack sites". They make no distinction between links from article space versus project or talk space, nor between links which are intended to serve as attacks and links which are merely involved in commentary, or for reference. They insist on the retention of wording which has this interpretation; they continue to cite Arbcom's "MONGO decision" as if they wish to enshrine and more broadly apply that principle. They resist the introduction of more moderate wording such as "links to abusive external material which are placed with intent to offend or abuse are disallowed."
If the "attack sites" portion of WP:NPA merely banned links which serve as attacks (an interpretation utterly consistent with the rest of NPA), if it did not try to resurrect BADSITES by punitively banning all links to an unnamed (and unnamable) list of shunned sites, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
Look, let's start talking some sense now. ED, WR are attack sites, nothing more. They have no value whatsoever, and, unless under some extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, there's simply no reason to link to them. The MONGO case was clear (and correct) about this.
On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times", and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events. Yes, it happened that one editor tried to treat a site as an "attack site" and most others didn't agree with him. However, his actions were quickly stopped, he apologized, and no real harm was done.
The hysteria-talk really must stop, it adds no value whatsoever.
Look, Jay, I recognise that you and SlimVirgin are sincere when you say you don't mean this policy to degenerate into the crap we've been seeing. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
What I'm saying is, intentions are good, but by their fruits ye shall know them. The consistent implementation of this principle you, SlimVirgin and to a lesser extent Fred Bauder have been advocating has consistently resulted in abuses. Now, if this was the only way to achieve the result we all want - banning links made for the purpose of personal attacks or to otherwise harm an editor - then I'd be okay with it.
But as many of us have pointed out before, there's no reason a looser-worded policy or one based on the existing NPA policy would not achieve the same end.
The fact is, the fruits of this policy are the fruits of any blanket ban which tars a broad variety of sites with the same brush. You say applying this blanket ban with some common sense should avoid the problems we've seen.
But when people have consistently exhibited a lack of the common sense required to apply this, and there is an alternative proposal which can achieve virtually the same results without relying on people having the common sense to know what is banned by this blanket and what is not, why should we not go for the alternative?
Johnleemk
On 7/2/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
What I'm saying is, intentions are good, but by their fruits ye shall know them. The consistent implementation of this principle you, SlimVirgin and to a lesser extent Fred Bauder have been advocating has consistently resulted in abuses.
What consistency? One example, quickly contained. As I said, I've seen people doing sweeping removals of links to specific sites for all sorts of reasons, they don't need a strawman policy for justification.
Now, if this was the only way to achieve the result we all want - banning links made for the purpose of personal attacks or to otherwise harm an editor - then I'd be okay with it.
But as many of us have pointed out before, there's no reason a looser-worded policy or one based on the existing NPA policy would not achieve the same end.
What did you have in mind?
But when people have consistently exhibited a lack of the common sense required to apply this, and there is an alternative proposal which can achieve virtually the same results without relying on people having the common sense to know what is banned by this blanket and what is not, why should we not go for the alternative?
What consistent exhibitions of a "lack of common sense" have you seen?
On 7/4/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
What I'm saying is, intentions are good, but by their fruits ye shall
know
them. The consistent implementation of this principle you, SlimVirgin
and to
a lesser extent Fred Bauder have been advocating has consistently
resulted
in abuses.
What consistency? One example, quickly contained. As I said, I've seen people doing sweeping removals of links to specific sites for all sorts of reasons, they don't need a strawman policy for justification.
One example? I can think of a lot more than just the Teresa Nielsen Hayden case. Links to "attack sites" have been removed from the Signpost in the past, and people like Dan Tobias have been aggressively highlighting them on the list.
Now, if this was the only way to achieve the result we all want -
banning links made for the purpose of personal attacks or to otherwise
harm
an editor - then I'd be okay with it.
But as many of us have pointed out before, there's no reason a
looser-worded
policy or one based on the existing NPA policy would not achieve the
same
end.
What did you have in mind?
Steve Summit wrote:
"You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?"
But when people have consistently exhibited a lack of the common sense
required to apply this, and there is an alternative proposal which can achieve virtually the same results without relying on people having the common sense to know what is banned by this blanket and what is not, why should we not go for the alternative?
What consistent exhibitions of a "lack of common sense" have you seen?
See above.
Johnleemk
On 7/4/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
What I'm saying is, intentions are good, but by their fruits ye shall
know
them. The consistent implementation of this principle you, SlimVirgin
and to
a lesser extent Fred Bauder have been advocating has consistently
resulted
in abuses.
What consistency? One example, quickly contained. As I said, I've seen people doing sweeping removals of links to specific sites for all sorts of reasons, they don't need a strawman policy for justification.
One example? I can think of a lot more than just the Teresa Nielsen Hayden case. Links to "attack sites" have been removed from the Signpost in the past, and people like Dan Tobias have been aggressively highlighting them on the list.
The link removal from the Signpost was a bad idea? Just because Dan Tobias doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
The link removal from the Signpost was a bad idea? Just because Dan Tobias doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
Just because jayjg doesn't like something, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
On 7/4/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
The link removal from the Signpost was a bad idea? Just because Dan Tobias doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
Just because jayjg doesn't like something, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
I wasn't the one asserting that there were all sorts of bad effects. These things have to be proved, not just asserted.
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
I wasn't the one asserting that there were all sorts of bad effects. These things have to be proved, not just asserted.
Hopefully not to your satisfaction alone, as you've yet to see a concern raised on this subject you haven't been insultingly dismissive of.
(Really. I looked back through the threads.)
- d.
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
One example? I can think of a lot more than just the Teresa Nielsen Hayden case. Links to "attack sites" have been removed from the Signpost in the past, and people like Dan Tobias have been aggressively highlighting them on the list.
The link removal from the Signpost was a bad idea?
Yes, it was removed on a bad basis.
Just because Dan Tobias doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
And just because he doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a good thing.
You may care to, I don't know, address the issues? Just an idea.
- d.
On 7/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
One example? I can think of a lot more than just the Teresa Nielsen Hayden case. Links to "attack sites" have been removed from the Signpost in the past, and people like Dan Tobias have been aggressively highlighting them on the list.
The link removal from the Signpost was a bad idea?
Yes, it was removed on a bad basis.
Just because Dan Tobias doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
And just because he doesn't like something, it doesn't mean it's a good thing.
You may care to, I don't know, address the issues? Just an idea.
You have it backwards; the assertion was made that all sorts of negative things were happening because Dan Tobias said they were. That's not a proof of anything.
On 05/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You may care to, I don't know, address the issues? Just an idea.
You have it backwards; the assertion was made that all sorts of negative things were happening because Dan Tobias said they were. That's not a proof of anything.
Cut with the ad hominem. Last time this thread came around you dived into the middle then confessed you couldn't be bothered reading up on the concerns first. I would hope you'd do better the second time around.
- d.
G'day John,
On 7/4/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
But as many of us have pointed out before, there's no reason a
looser-worded
policy or one based on the existing NPA policy would not achieve the
same
end.
What did you have in mind?
Steve Summit wrote:
"You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?"
For what it's worth, I'm with John and Steve S here, and I can't see what's wrong with their approach.
If someone links to WR maliciously, we deal with it as a personal attack ... and get all the benefits we would get from I Can't Believe It's Not BADSITES[0] and similar products. If someone finds one of those legitimate reasons to link to WR that Guy has been so scornful of, a links accordingly, we don't have a problem.
Why is this worse than banning all links to certain sites, exactly? Why can't we just muddle along as Steve S advocates?
[0] In the timeless words of Monty Python, "You try anything like that around here, and we'll cut your face!"
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:20:59 +1000, Mark Gallagher fuddlemark@gmail.com wrote:
If someone links to WR maliciously, we deal with it as a personal attack ... and get all the benefits we would get from I Can't Believe It's Not BADSITES[0] and similar products. If someone finds one of those legitimate reasons to link to WR that Guy has been so scornful of, a links accordingly, we don't have a problem.
I'm not scornful, I just haven't seen one yet. But of course we will simply come back to the same old problem: the people who passionately want to link to that thread on WR simply will not accept any rationale for not doing so, whoever it comes from. Any argument that opposes that link is, in their view, an invalid argument, because they consider it an appropriate link. The length of these threads shows that there are a large number of people who think it is *not* appropriate.
This is the recurring theme throughout the debate. Anyone who comes along and exhibits a flexible approach is welcomed as a friend right up to the point where the specific link is discussed and rejected, at which point we have to go round the whole loop again because suddenly they are one of the evil BADSITES people.
In the end, we are never going to persuade Dan Tobias that the thread he wants to link is unacceptable in the eyes of sufficient people that inclusion is not going to happen. If he was able to accept this and drop it, we would have stopped the discussion months back, but he seems very determined to keep asking until he gets the answer he wants.
Guy (JzG)
On 7/14/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:20:59 +1000, Mark Gallagher fuddlemark@gmail.com wrote:
If someone links to WR maliciously, we deal with it as a personal attack ... and get all the benefits we would get from I Can't Believe It's Not BADSITES[0] and similar products. If someone finds one of those legitimate reasons to link to WR that Guy has been so scornful of, a links accordingly, we don't have a problem.
I'm not scornful, I just haven't seen one yet. But of course we will simply come back to the same old problem: the people who passionately want to link to that thread on WR simply will not accept any rationale for not doing so, whoever it comes from. Any argument that opposes that link is, in their view, an invalid argument, because they consider it an appropriate link. The length of these threads shows that there are a large number of people who think it is *not* appropriate.
This is the recurring theme throughout the debate. Anyone who comes along and exhibits a flexible approach is welcomed as a friend right up to the point where the specific link is discussed and rejected, at which point we have to go round the whole loop again because suddenly they are one of the evil BADSITES people.
In the end, we are never going to persuade Dan Tobias that the thread he wants to link is unacceptable in the eyes of sufficient people that inclusion is not going to happen. If he was able to accept this and drop it, we would have stopped the discussion months back, but he seems very determined to keep asking until he gets the answer he wants.
Wait, Dan wants to link to WR? I thought he was just railing against the blanket ban so repeatedly till even I got tired of reading his posts, as much as I agree with them.
And FWIW, I'm all for permabanning idiots who don't get that links which constitute personal attacks aren't allowed. What I'm not for is a blanket ban of certain sites just because they have a history of posting personal attacks. (ED is the exception to the rule, of course. Every rule has cases which don't fit the normal principles, and rigidly enforcing the principle I am advocating would be just as disastrous as rigidly enforcing a blanket ban.)
Johnleemk
On 14/07/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
This is the recurring theme throughout the debate. Anyone who comes along and exhibits a flexible approach is welcomed as a friend right up to the point where the specific link is discussed and rejected, at which point we have to go round the whole loop again because suddenly they are one of the evil BADSITES people.
Um, no - it's because they pull shit like trashing an RFA because the candidate fails to support their failed policy.
- d.
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:11:02 +0100, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Um, no - it's because they pull shit like trashing an RFA because the candidate fails to support their failed policy.
The 'crats should set an example by explicitly ignoring such idiocy. Unless of course the links were actually harassment, in which case it doesn't matter what words we use, they still have to go.
Guy (JzG)
On 14/07/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:11:02 +0100, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Um, no - it's because they pull shit like trashing an RFA because the candidate fails to support their failed policy.
The 'crats should set an example by explicitly ignoring such idiocy. Unless of course the links were actually harassment, in which case it doesn't matter what words we use, they still have to go.
No, I mean SlimVirgin asked Gracenotes if he supported the policy, he said "case by case is best" and she went to town on the RFA. This has been discussed at length on this list already. I'm sure I recall you participating in the thread at the time.
- d.
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:48:31 +0100, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I mean SlimVirgin asked Gracenotes if he supported the policy, he said "case by case is best" and she went to town on the RFA. This has been discussed at length on this list already. I'm sure I recall you participating in the thread at the time.
SV has been the target of egregious harassment from WR, so it's not a surprise, but we should have reined her in.
Guy (JzG)
On 14/07/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:48:31 +0100, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I mean SlimVirgin asked Gracenotes if he supported the policy, he said "case by case is best" and she went to town on the RFA. This has been discussed at length on this list already. I'm sure I recall you participating in the thread at the time.
SV has been the target of egregious harassment from WR, so it's not a surprise, but we should have reined her in.
That's easy to say now, but the problem is not advocacy for WR links - the problem is that no-one is in fact reining in those admins going stupidly overboard in advocating full site bans. The problematic behaviour keeps happening over and over again, and when called on it we see (as we have on this list) that they become abusive to anyone questioning their behaviour, let alone expecting them to acknowledge that it could conceivably be problematic in any way whatsoever.
They are arguably being more disruptive and damaging to the community than the damage from the attack site links itself is.
- d.
On 7/14/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's easy to say now, but the problem is not advocacy for WR links - the problem is that no-one is in fact reining in those admins going stupidly overboard in advocating full site bans. The problematic behaviour keeps happening over and over again, and when called on it we see (as we have on this list) that they become abusive to anyone questioning their behaviour, let alone expecting them to acknowledge that it could conceivably be problematic in any way whatsoever.
They are arguably being more disruptive and damaging to the community than the damage from the attack site links itself is.
David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop. I opposed Gracenotes' RfA because I didn't trust his judgment, and there were a number of reasons for that, which I explained here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_admi... Please read that carefully before you comment again. I support people I trust, and I oppose people I don't trust, and my reasoning never rests on one issue. People are entitled to act on their instincts without being attacked for it.
Note that Gracenotes *during his RfA* restored a post from a WR anon saying I had never asked them to remove the attacks against me. It was nonsense and it was removed by two admins, but Gracenotes restored it. That is the kind of thing people opposed him over.
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it. I also don't go around removing links, and in fact can't recall when I last did it. I don't support the incident where a link to a blog was removed, but the person who did that admitted he over-reacted, and his apology should be accepted, which means we should stop harping on about it.
There's another side to your view of evil admins stomping around removing links added by innocent sweeties who're only trying to be helpful. During one of the discussions about this issue, one of the people on this mailing list who argues in favor of linking found some attacks on me from WR, including an attempt to out me, that had been posted to another website. Delighted, he started asking whether X was now an attack site, and of course he said he didn't dare link to it (heaven forfend!) but another editor was kind enough to tell people that the attacks were on website X, page Y, section Z -- only in the interests of informing the discussion, mind you. It probably broke his heart to do it.
I can't remove that discussion, because if I do, I open myself up to more personal attacks on this list, and I open the list up to another 50 e-mails from Dan Tobias. I don't want to ask anyone else to remove it, because then I expose them to the vitriol. So I have to pretend I haven't seen it, and just leave it for any passing person to read, knowing it was posted by someone who postures as a fellow editor. BLP doesn't apply to me, it seems. Please try to imagine how hurtful that is.
This is what Fred Bauder has been arguing. We need to create an environment where regular editors feel supported when they're attacked from outside, not one in which they get attacked even more for trying to defend themselves. That means not kicking up a giant fuss when links are removed, even if you don't wholeheartedly agree with the removal. It means not mocking someone over and over in public because he reacted badly to being outed and asked for a link to an otherwise decent blog to be removed. It means not taking up the cause of the attackers just because you think a policy proposal went too far.
If you think a bunch of admins are overegging it, e-mail them; don't take them to task on a mailing list. Remember that they're trying to be decent (no matter how misguided you think they are), as opposed to trying to hurt people, which is what the linkers are doing. That distinction is actually the only thing that matters in the end.
Sarah
on 7/14/07 6:44 PM, Slim Virgin at slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's easy to say now, but the problem is not advocacy for WR links - the problem is that no-one is in fact reining in those admins going stupidly overboard in advocating full site bans. The problematic behaviour keeps happening over and over again, and when called on it we see (as we have on this list) that they become abusive to anyone questioning their behaviour, let alone expecting them to acknowledge that it could conceivably be problematic in any way whatsoever.
They are arguably being more disruptive and damaging to the community than the damage from the attack site links itself is.
David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop. I opposed Gracenotes' RfA because I didn't trust his judgment, and there were a number of reasons for that, which I explained here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_admi... ship%2FGracenotes&diff=133712259&oldid=133707616 Please read that carefully before you comment again. I support people I trust, and I oppose people I don't trust, and my reasoning never rests on one issue. People are entitled to act on their instincts without being attacked for it.
Note that Gracenotes *during his RfA* restored a post from a WR anon saying I had never asked them to remove the attacks against me. It was nonsense and it was removed by two admins, but Gracenotes restored it. That is the kind of thing people opposed him over.
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it. I also don't go around removing links, and in fact can't recall when I last did it. I don't support the incident where a link to a blog was removed, but the person who did that admitted he over-reacted, and his apology should be accepted, which means we should stop harping on about it.
There's another side to your view of evil admins stomping around removing links added by innocent sweeties who're only trying to be helpful. During one of the discussions about this issue, one of the people on this mailing list who argues in favor of linking found some attacks on me from WR, including an attempt to out me, that had been posted to another website. Delighted, he started asking whether X was now an attack site, and of course he said he didn't dare link to it (heaven forfend!) but another editor was kind enough to tell people that the attacks were on website X, page Y, section Z -- only in the interests of informing the discussion, mind you. It probably broke his heart to do it.
I can't remove that discussion, because if I do, I open myself up to more personal attacks on this list, and I open the list up to another 50 e-mails from Dan Tobias. I don't want to ask anyone else to remove it, because then I expose them to the vitriol. So I have to pretend I haven't seen it, and just leave it for any passing person to read, knowing it was posted by someone who postures as a fellow editor. BLP doesn't apply to me, it seems. Please try to imagine how hurtful that is.
This is what Fred Bauder has been arguing. We need to create an environment where regular editors feel supported when they're attacked from outside, not one in which they get attacked even more for trying to defend themselves. That means not kicking up a giant fuss when links are removed, even if you don't wholeheartedly agree with the removal. It means not mocking someone over and over in public because he reacted badly to being outed and asked for a link to an otherwise decent blog to be removed. It means not taking up the cause of the attackers just because you think a policy proposal went too far.
If you think a bunch of admins are overegging it, e-mail them; don't take them to task on a mailing list. Remember that they're trying to be decent (no matter how misguided you think they are), as opposed to trying to hurt people, which is what the linkers are doing. That distinction is actually the only thing that matters in the end.
Sarah
I feel what you are saying, Sarah. If this Community doesn't stop obsessing about the mechanics of this Project, and start focusing on how it's people are being treated; the only thing that will be big about it, is the hole it leaves when it is gone.
Marc Riddell
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
On 7/14/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
It can be, yes. The logical conclusion of NPOV is that we publish prominently the views of the vast majority of the world (including the published world) on women and gays, for example, views that are largely vile. So we understand that NPOV, like every other policy and process, is to be applied with common sense. Wilfully ignoring the common sense factor leads only to trouble, wikilawyering and, yes, trolling.
But we do publish them prominently. We also publish other views prominently. We present them fairly, in order that people may see them and learn. I at least trust that prejudice will be dispelled by providing the materials for knowledge. This is not blind--it is based on the historical truth that it is those who want to sustain prejudice who do he censoring.
On 7/14/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
It can be, yes. The logical conclusion of NPOV is that we publish prominently the views of the vast majority of the world (including the published world) on women and gays, for example, views that are largely vile. So we understand that NPOV, like every other policy and process, is to be applied with common sense. Wilfully ignoring the common sense factor leads only to trouble, wikilawyering and, yes, trolling.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/14/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
It can be, yes. The logical conclusion of NPOV is that we publish prominently the views of the vast majority of the world (including the published world) on women and gays, for example, views that are largely vile. So we understand that NPOV, like every other policy and process, is to be applied with common sense. Wilfully ignoring the common sense factor leads only to trouble, wikilawyering and, yes, trolling.
But we do publish them prominently.
No, we don't. If we were fairly to represent the majority of the world's published sources on [[Gay]], we'd have to include in the lead that people think homosexuality is a sin, and at [[Woman]], that most people around the world think women are inferior to men.
We pay lip service to NPOV, and to BIAS, while quietly applying both with common sense, which is how all the policies and processed need to be applied.
Sarah
We publish them fairly, which does not mean proportional to the numbers who believe in them. It means fully enough to explain them objectively in their own terms, and this goes for literally everything--and I would say without any exception. You are confusing voting for legislation with making an encyclopedia. The number of people who hold a view is irrelevant.
On 7/15/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
It can be, yes. The logical conclusion of NPOV is that we publish prominently the views of the vast majority of the world (including the published world) on women and gays, for example, views that are largely vile. So we understand that NPOV, like every other policy and process, is to be applied with common sense. Wilfully ignoring the common sense factor leads only to trouble, wikilawyering and, yes, trolling.
But we do publish them prominently.
No, we don't. If we were fairly to represent the majority of the world's published sources on [[Gay]], we'd have to include in the lead that people think homosexuality is a sin, and at [[Woman]], that most people around the world think women are inferior to men.
We pay lip service to NPOV, and to BIAS, while quietly applying both with common sense, which is how all the policies and processed need to be applied.
Sarah
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On 7/15/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it.
Taking an argument to its logical conclusion is "trolling"?
It can be, yes. The logical conclusion of NPOV is that we publish prominently the views of the vast majority of the world (including the published world) on women and gays, for example, views that are largely vile. So we understand that NPOV, like every other policy and process, is to be applied with common sense. Wilfully ignoring the common sense factor leads only to trouble, wikilawyering and, yes, trolling.
But we do publish them prominently.
No, we don't. If we were fairly to represent the majority of the world's published sources on [[Gay]], we'd have to include in the lead that people think homosexuality is a sin, and at [[Woman]], that most people around the world think women are inferior to men.
We pay lip service to NPOV, and to BIAS, while quietly applying both with common sense, which is how all the policies and processed need to be applied.
David, please don't top-post. :-)
We publish them fairly, which does not mean proportional to the numbers who believe in them. It means fully enough to explain them objectively in their own terms, and this goes for literally everything--and I would say without any exception. You are confusing voting for legislation with making an encyclopedia. The number of people who hold a view is irrelevant.
Well, we're meant to represent views in rough proportion to how they're held by reliable, published sources. We're also meant to take a global perspective. If we were to do both of those things, we would have to add thoroughly objectionable material to lots of articles, including the examples I gave above. So we don't do it.
Look at [[Gay]] and [[Woman]], and you'll see that we don't.
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 7/15/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
No, we don't. If we were fairly to represent the majority of the world's published sources on [[Gay]], we'd have to include in the lead that people think homosexuality is a sin, and at [[Woman]], that most people around the world think women are inferior to men.
We pay lip service to NPOV, and to BIAS, while quietly applying both with common sense, which is how all the policies and processed need to be applied.
We publish them fairly, which does not mean proportional to the numbers who believe in them. It means fully enough to explain them objectively in their own terms, and this goes for literally everything--and I would say without any exception. You are confusing voting for legislation with making an encyclopedia. The number of people who hold a view is irrelevant.
Well, we're meant to represent views in rough proportion to how they're held by reliable, published sources. We're also meant to take a global perspective. If we were to do both of those things, we would have to add thoroughly objectionable material to lots of articles, including the examples I gave above. So we don't do it.
Look at [[Gay]] and [[Woman]], and you'll see that we don't.
Sorry if I'm getting mixed up about who said what. Fairly and neutrally representing minority views is not a question of equal proportion of words, or of number of words in the ratio of an idea's popularity. If some people think that homosexuality is a sin, that can be said in one sentence. Maybe one paragraph will be enough for them to explain their theory, and provide sources to show that the theory came from somewhere. If a theory fails because there is a logical flaw in the premises to that theory, it is an utter waste of time to show how every detail that follows from that premise is also wrong.
Ec
There should be at least one article explaining their views fully, and a reference to it in others. The proportional coverage problems begin when they try to insert a full explanation of why it is a sin in every article on the subject. That's every bit as wrong as putting an explanation of why homosexuality is not a sin into every article on a conservative preacher who thinks it is.
It is the doctrine of my profession, expressed deliberately in somewhat factitious terms, that a librarian is obliged, as far as his work is concerned, to have no politics, no religion, and no morals--and this is basically the principle on which modern librarians do operate. I think it applies also to reporters and encyclopedia-makers.
Writing an encyclopedia to explain and defend the Truth was the intent of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
On 7/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 7/15/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
No, we don't. If we were fairly to represent the majority of the world's published sources on [[Gay]], we'd have to include in the lead that people think homosexuality is a sin, and at [[Woman]], that most people around the world think women are inferior to men.
We pay lip service to NPOV, and to BIAS, while quietly applying both with common sense, which is how all the policies and processed need to be applied.
We publish them fairly, which does not mean proportional to the numbers who believe in them. It means fully enough to explain them objectively in their own terms, and this goes for literally everything--and I would say without any exception. You are confusing voting for legislation with making an encyclopedia. The number of people who hold a view is irrelevant.
Well, we're meant to represent views in rough proportion to how they're held by reliable, published sources. We're also meant to take a global perspective. If we were to do both of those things, we would have to add thoroughly objectionable material to lots of articles, including the examples I gave above. So we don't do it.
Look at [[Gay]] and [[Woman]], and you'll see that we don't.
Sorry if I'm getting mixed up about who said what. Fairly and neutrally representing minority views is not a question of equal proportion of words, or of number of words in the ratio of an idea's popularity. If some people think that homosexuality is a sin, that can be said in one sentence. Maybe one paragraph will be enough for them to explain their theory, and provide sources to show that the theory came from somewhere. If a theory fails because there is a logical flaw in the premises to that theory, it is an utter waste of time to show how every detail that follows from that premise is also wrong.
Ec
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On 7/14/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's easy to say now, but the problem is not advocacy for WR links - the problem is that no-one is in fact reining in those admins going stupidly overboard in advocating full site bans. The problematic behaviour keeps happening over and over again, and when called on it we see (as we have on this list) that they become abusive to anyone questioning their behaviour, let alone expecting them to acknowledge that it could conceivably be problematic in any way whatsoever.
They are arguably being more disruptive and damaging to the community than the damage from the attack site links itself is.
David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop. I opposed Gracenotes' RfA because I didn't trust his judgment, and there were a number of reasons for that, which I explained here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_admi... Please read that carefully before you comment again. I support people I trust, and I oppose people I don't trust, and my reasoning never rests on one issue. People are entitled to act on their instincts without being attacked for it.
Note that Gracenotes *during his RfA* restored a post from a WR anon saying I had never asked them to remove the attacks against me. It was nonsense and it was removed by two admins, but Gracenotes restored it. That is the kind of thing people opposed him over.
Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it. I also don't go around removing links, and in fact can't recall when I last did it.
Pretty much the same here. In fact, for all the rhetoric directed at me on the list, I never actually edited the "BADSITES" proposed policy or its Talk: page.
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
But when people have consistently exhibited a lack of the common sense required to apply this, and there is an alternative proposal which can achieve virtually the same results without relying on people having the common sense to know what is banned by this blanket and what is not, why should we not go for the alternative?
What consistent exhibitions of a "lack of common sense" have you seen?
Are you not reading all of the thread again?
- d.
On 7/2/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Look, let's start talking some sense now. ED, WR are attack sites, nothing more. They have no value whatsoever, and, unless under some extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, there's simply no reason to link to them. The MONGO case was clear (and correct) about this.
And I say you are wrong, and that you are lumping together a bunch of sites whose one real commonality is that they bear ill-will towards a variety of Wikipedians. I'm not going to defend ED and Wikitruth, but as there is an article on the latter it is ordinarily reasonable to link to it, and pointless not to. WR is just a forum. As far as the "attack" nature of it is concerned, it is so not because they give names to people (if you can find them, and I'd bet most people would have a lot of trouble doing so) but because of their opposition to the way Wikipedia is being run.
But even then, the problem is that you can't keep it confined to that small set of sites, because naming names is just something that people out there are going to do. Now, maybe some oldtimers are supposed to know that "attack sites" really means "ED, WR, and Wikitruth" and that other sites which name names are supposed to be left alone. It's simply not reasonable to expect to people to know this, and therefore the various erasure incidents are going to keep happening. So it has turned into yet another source of vandalism that people have to patrol for.
jayjg wrote:
On the other hand, the number of sites like them are fairly small, and people are generally sensible about these things: no-one is going to extrapolate from that to saying "we can't link to the New York Times", and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
Words like "incredibly" and "bizarre" set the tone for how you would look upon any exceptions. With the words "under any circumstances" being a part of the policy it would be easy for any experienced wiki-lawyer to beat back the hordes of common sense.
Ec
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor. The only sites that shouldn't be linked to are those that make a *habit* of outing people, and the only people who are warned they might be blocked (or who are blocked) are the ones doing it deliberately and disruptively, as in "Oh, is THIS one of the naughty ones?" And "Ooooh, what about this? Aren't I awful?"
The flip side of this, of course, is that there's no real need to make this judgement, at least in this particular case. Regardless of whether WR is covered by the MONGO ruling (it's not explicitly named, and we've sort of waffled back and forth on the issue for some time now): why exactly do we need to link to it? For our purposes, it's not a reliable source; we don't add links to random websites -- even *interesting* random websites -- in the same way we don't add links to tabloids. If we just enforce the existing policy on external links, the problem essentially goes away.
Kirill
On 7/2/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Regardless of whether WR is covered by the MONGO ruling (it's not explicitly named, and we've sort of waffled back and forth on the issue for some time now): why exactly do we need to link to it? For our purposes, it's not a reliable source; we don't add links to random websites -- even *interesting* random websites -- in the same way we don't add links to tabloids. If we just enforce the existing policy on external links, the problem essentially goes away.
WR is a reliable source, and is used as such. That sounds preposterous? Then go see how many links there are to it: 193 as I write this. A substantial fraction, maybe half, are citations as evidence in a bunch of RfC/ArbCom cases.
On 7/3/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Regardless of whether WR is covered by the MONGO ruling (it's not explicitly named, and we've sort of waffled back and forth on the issue for some time now): why exactly do we need to link to it? For our purposes, it's not a reliable source; we don't add links to random websites -- even *interesting* random websites -- in the same way we don't add links to tabloids. If we just enforce the existing policy on external links, the problem essentially goes away.
WR is a reliable source, and is used as such. That sounds preposterous? Then go see how many links there are to it: 193 as I write this. A substantial fraction, maybe half, are citations as evidence in a bunch of RfC/ArbCom cases.
Erm, no. It may be accurate to say that it's occasionally mis-used by people who for some bizarre reason think it might be a reliable source; but on the scale of actual reliability for the purposes of an encyclopedia article, an anonymous online forum -- largely populated by people with an obvious axe to grind, to boot -- is one step above graffiti on a bathroom wall. Its only potential use would be for coverage of WR itself, which we don't actually have any of at the moment, making that point rather moot.
(The occasional convenience of having such links in dispute resolution proceedings are one of the reasons I argued against the total ban proposed by BADSITES, incidentally; but such proceedings aren't covered by sourcing policy in any case.)
Kirill
On 7/3/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
(The occasional convenience of having such links in dispute resolution proceedings are one of the reasons I argued against the total ban proposed by BADSITES, incidentally; but such proceedings aren't covered by sourcing policy in any case.)
But they have been always considered covered by the BADSITES/MONGO psuedo-policy, which is why the sourcing discussion is and is not a red herring. It is a red herring in that nobody has ever talked aobut this in terms of article space; it is not a red herring because charges about the content of sites need citation.
On 7/3/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/3/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
(The occasional convenience of having such links in dispute resolution proceedings are one of the reasons I argued against the total ban proposed by BADSITES, incidentally; but such proceedings aren't covered by sourcing policy in any case.)
But they have been always considered covered by the BADSITES/MONGO psuedo-policy, which is why the sourcing discussion is and is not a red herring. It is a red herring in that nobody has ever talked aobut this in terms of article space; it is not a red herring because charges about the content of sites need citation.
BADSITES isn't policy, or pseudo-policy, or guideline, or even a good idea. MONGO is kind-of-pseudo-policy, but even the arbs that actually voted on it seem to have different interpretations of how far it's really meant to go. ;-)
More to the point, though: I was under the impression this particular episode had started because someone wanted to put a link to WR in an *article*, no?
Kirill
On 03/07/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/3/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
(The occasional convenience of having such links in dispute resolution proceedings are one of the reasons I argued against the total ban proposed by BADSITES, incidentally; but such proceedings aren't covered by sourcing policy in any case.)
But they have been always considered covered by the BADSITES/MONGO psuedo-policy, which is why the sourcing discussion is and is not a red herring. It is a red herring in that nobody has ever talked aobut this in terms of article space; it is not a red herring because charges about the content of sites need citation.
No, they've acted on it in article space.
- d.
On 02/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous: "A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes.
Sorry, what he *meant* to say was that we can no longer link to Making Light.
That's a site that was blocked after sliding all the way down the "slippery slope", in the best of faith.
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
- d.
On 7/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous: "A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes.
Sorry, what he *meant* to say was that we can no longer link to Making Light.
That's a site that was blocked after sliding all the way down the "slippery slope", in the best of faith.
A "slide" that lasted all of couple of hours, and was quickly reversed. Hardly a crisis.
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
This isn't about the BADSITES policy, this is about the MONGO case.
jayjg wrote
On 7/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
This isn't about the BADSITES policy, this is about the MONGO case.
It's about trying to get BADSITES resurrected, under the guise of the "attack sites" section within WP:NPA, using MONGO as a precedent.
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote
On 7/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
This isn't about the BADSITES policy, this is about the MONGO case.
It's about trying to get BADSITES resurrected, under the guise of the "attack sites" section within WP:NPA, using MONGO as a precedent.
No, Steve, we're not doing "A WITCH, A WITCH" commentary any more. We're moving on to sensible discussion.
Jayjg wrote to me:
No, Steve, we're not doing "A WITCH, A WITCH" commentary any more. We're moving on to sensible discussion.
and to James Farrar:
James, we've moved on to sensible discussion, no more straw-man policy hysteria labels.
Jay, you don't win an argument by attempting to dismiss your opponents' good-faith arguments as "not sensible" or "hysteria". If I weren't such an equanimous sort I might be offended.
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Jayjg wrote to me:
No, Steve, we're not doing "A WITCH, A WITCH" commentary any more. We're moving on to sensible discussion.
and to James Farrar:
James, we've moved on to sensible discussion, no more straw-man policy hysteria labels.
Jay, you don't win an argument by attempting to dismiss your opponents' good-faith arguments as "not sensible" or "hysteria". If I weren't such an equanimous sort I might be offended.
I'm not interested in having the discussion hijacked into the hysteria regarding the straw-man BADSITES policy.
jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Jay, you don't win an argument by attempting to dismiss your opponents' good-faith arguments as "not sensible" or "hysteria".
I'm not interested in having the discussion hijacked into the hysteria regarding the straw-man BADSITES policy.
I'm not trying to hijack anything. (And I hope you don't think I'm being hysterical.) I shall endeavor to avoid mentioning BA*****S if it's such a hot button for you.
Jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
It's about trying to get BADSITES resurrected, under the guise of the "attack sites" section within WP:NPA, using MONGO as a precedent.
No, Steve, we're not doing "A WITCH, A WITCH" commentary any more. We're moving on to sensible discussion.
I'm sorry my statement might have sounded to some like the ravings of a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and I almost said so in advance. But in all seriousness: what is the difference between BADSITES and
...Linking to attack sites is not permitted and doing so repeatedly may result in a block.
The ArbCom has ruled that "[a] website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances," and that "[l]inks to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking."
(That's from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia: No_personal_attacks&oldid=133377921, from May 25.)
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's a site that was blocked after sliding all the way down the "slippery slope", in the best of faith.
A "slide" that lasted all of couple of hours, and was quickly reversed. Hardly a crisis.
The problem is that it was in the best of faith, and was nevertheless stupid and damaging.
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
This isn't about the BADSITES policy, this is about the MONGO case.
This is about the policy bearing an unmistakable resemblance to BADSITES, where editors are *actually being blocked* for edits which the arbitrator who wrote the original wording in the case says aren't covered by it.
How is this not a problem? How is arbitrary blocking under guise of a woefully misinterpreted arbitration decision not a problem?
- d.
On 7/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's a site that was blocked after sliding all the way down the "slippery slope", in the best of faith.
A "slide" that lasted all of couple of hours, and was quickly reversed. Hardly a crisis.
The problem is that it was in the best of faith, and was nevertheless stupid and damaging.
People have done as much and more with existing policies, and it wasn't really "damaging".
BADSITES is an odious, stupid and damaging policy. Please stop pushing it.
This isn't about the BADSITES policy, this is about the MONGO case.
This is about the policy bearing an unmistakable resemblance to BADSITES, where editors are *actually being blocked* for edits which the arbitrator who wrote the original wording in the case says aren't covered by it.
How is this not a problem? How is arbitrary blocking under guise of a woefully misinterpreted arbitration decision not a problem?
The decision wasn't woefully misinterpreted - remember, I was there, and one of the ones making that decision. And the blocking hasn't been arbitrary. Breaching experiments are not helpful to the project.
On 7/2/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
I wish people would stop these hyperbolic slippery slopes. The NYT has not "outed" any Wikipedia editor.
What about Essjay?
The only sites that shouldn't be linked to are those that make a *habit* of outing people, and the only people who are warned they might be blocked (or who are blocked) are the ones doing it deliberately and disruptively, as in "Oh, is THIS one of the naughty ones?" And "Ooooh, what about this? Aren't I awful?"
And by "people", you mean, you?
----- Original Message ----- From: James Farrar To: English Wikipedia Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 4:50 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkk site link policy
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
Maybe I just missed it, but I didn't see an "outing" of any private information, other than that which was presumably given to the Times with the understanding that it could be printed. I suppose I am not fully in the loop on that, but... someone clarify for me if I missed something, please.
Philippe
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On 7/2/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: James Farrar To: English Wikipedia Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 4:50 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkk site link policy
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
Maybe I just missed it, but I didn't see an "outing" of any private information, other than that which was presumably given to the Times with the understanding that it could be printed. I suppose I am not fully in the loop on that, but... someone clarify for me if I missed something, please.
Philippe
You didn't miss anything, and you have it exactly right.
James Farrar stated for the record:
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
Yeah! That's my name, right there! That's my name in the New York Times Magazine! w00t!
Er, that is, I mean ... who does that Jonathan Dee think he is, revealing my name and general line of work just because I was so careless as to mention both during the interview?
G'day James,
On 02/07/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it was appropriate. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous:
"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances."
OK, so we not cannot link to the New York Times, after its recent magazine article.
The Moral High Ground isn't a cliff you can just jump off.
Or rather, that's what I thought until I noticed the Incredibly Stupid Thing you just said. What an amazing feat!
On 0, Kamryn Matika kamrynmatika@gmail.com scribbled:
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Kamryn Matika [mailto:kamrynmatika@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 10:58 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
On 7/2/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
I recall no arbitration ruling which relates to Wikipedia Review.
Fred
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Why did you endorse my block if this is the case? The block was enacted solely on the ruling in the MONGO case and was applied to my reverting to
a
version of a page that contained a reference to Wikipedia Review. If
there
was no arbitration ruling that relates to Wikipedia Review, how is the justification for my block valid? Why did you support it?
I didn't read the link right. In this case the link might be fine, although Wikipedia Review is down right now. I don't support broad generalization of the MONGO case. Glad we cleared that up. Maybe we can resolve this. Who is it that thinks someone can be blocked for a link to Wikipedia Review based on the MONGO case?
Fred
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Heh, okay... everyone makes mistakes.
See [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essjay_controversy&diff=prev&a...] this edit I made, and my talk page [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:KamrynMatika&oldid=1...] following it.
It seems that (in this case) ElinorD and Crum375 believe that it is OK to block an editor for adding a link to Wikipedia Review. In this case, the link pertained to the article as it linked to a thread on Wikipedia Review where Essjay's deception was first brought to light, and (in my opinion) it's quite relevant. I was warned for adding the link, based on the MONGO ruling, and then blocked when I ignored the warning (my bad there I guess). Is this or is this not appropriate? Thanks.
I'd just like to note for the record that I stopped adding the link precisely because of a block threat; as Matika's followup and subsequent block shows, the threat was acted upon.
-- gwern USCODE CISE SIRC CIM ISN DJC LLNL bemd SGC UNCPCJ CFC SABENA DREO CDA SADRS DRA